FRAMED FOR MURDER

UPDATE:

February 22, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order for the retesting of additional evidence in the case of Kevin Cooper.

“The purpose of testing these evidentiary items in addition to the four items of evidence referenced in the December 24, 2018, Executive Order, is to determine whether Kevin Cooper’s DNA, another suspected person’s DNA, and/or the DNA of any other identifiable suspect based on a match in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database, is present on the items tested.”

“Nothing could be more important to the integrity of our justice system than ensuring that an innocent person is not executed.”

New York Times article on Kevin Cooper Case:

“We owe it to the victims of this horrible crime, to Kevin Cooper, and to ourselves to get this one right.”

Judge William A. Fletcher

In 2009, referring to Mr. Cooper’s case, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals signed an 82 page dissenting opinionthat begins: “The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man.” Six additional Ninth Circuit judges joined in the dissent, saying Mr. Cooper has never had a fair hearing to prove his innocence.

“Significant evidence bearing on Cooper’s culpability has been lost, destroyed or left un-pursued,”

Judge M. Margaret McKeown

In a 2007 opinion for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge McKeown provides illustrative examples of evidentiary gaps, mishandling of evidence and suspicious circumstances in the case of Cooper V. People.

Kevin Cooper was convicted of the 1983 murders of the Ryen family and a houseguest in Chino Hills California, a city in the southwest corner of San Bernardino County.

What came to be known as the Chino Hills Murders were exceptionally vicious and brutal: 4 people murdered using a hatchet, a knife, and an icepick. They sustained 140 wounds, 28 fractures, 2 severed fingers. There was 1 surviving victim, left for dead.

The horrific nature of the murders risked putting the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department under close scrutiny by the local community and national media.

This scrutiny risked exposing corruption within.

Discovering that Kevin Cooper had been in close proximity to the crime scene after escaping from a nearby minimum security prison, Sheriff Floyd Tidwell deceived the media and local community by announcing there was solid evidence connecting him with the murders. This was not true.

With this announcement, just four days after the murders, he successfully shifted the attention to the California Institution of Men prison, which was already embroiled in controversy.